As the coronavirus crisis continues around the world, we all are developing novel ways to adapt to the post-pandemic “new normal”. The 1.5-trillion event industry, beyond doubt, is among the hardest hit. Luckily, people around the globe harbor a strong “the show must go on” sentiment, and events have thus been evolved and transformed under unprecedented challenges. EventX has compiled a white paper to highlight and analyze the key trends of the event industry in 2022 to help you grasp the latest news and vault you ahead of the curve! Read on to get a sneak peek into the report.
Trend 1: Hybrid events are becoming indispensable
To put it simply, a hybrid event combines in-person and digital aspects to provide the best possible experience for each audience. “Hybrid event” is essentially the buzzword lately, where searches for this term have recorded a surge of 72% since 2020, the beginning of the COVID19. Needless to say, there are bounteous benefits to keep the buzz going.
Hybrid events can break the conventional constraints of venue capacity or rental budgets, which boosts the reach and attendance, physical or virtual. This is particularly relevant under the often stringent and constantly changing local infection control policies including physical distancing/alternate seating/spacing of 1.5 meters between each participant under the context of Hong Kong. Making the event hybrid can address these measures and also maximize the event revenue. It’s also a lot more flexible to meet the different demands of event-goers. Your audience is given choices to attend live/online, and a heightened sense of involvement as a result. With the growing prevalence of online conferencing tools including but not limited to ZOOM under the constant technological advancement, there is also a growing acceptance of wider adoption of the latest innovations to empower hybrid events, connect local/global workstreams, as well as engage international communities. According to our research, 71% of event planners said they would continue to deploy digital/hybrid events even after live events can resume normal. In other words, hybrid events are bound to stay with us and may even become the preferred format for future events.
Trend 2: Events as transformational experiences
Events used to be content/connection-driven, and are now evolved to be multi-purpose, /experience-centered, encompassing education, thought leadership, and personalized experiences with data integration. The vast and infinite information highway has enabled us to create events not only informative but immersive, impressive, and transformative. Engagement with both physical and virtual audiences can be optimized in hybrid events empowered by real-time Q&A, live streaming, and ongoing discussion sessions, live chats, or polls to stay interactive before, during, and after the hybrid events.
Metaverse events have emerged to engage the increasingly hard-to-wow audience amongst fierce competition. It creates immersive event experiences through a high-definition, 3D, and 360-degree virtual reality (VR) lens, satisfying the new generation’s cravings for tech-based and novel digital encounters. It also underlines the metamorphosis of events from speakers/networking-oriented to exploration/interaction-intense. Learn more about this trend via a case study in EventX’s exclusive White Paper.
Trend 3: Data collection & marketing
Have you heard of the latest “ABCD” in the tech industry? It stands for Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain technology, Cloud Computing as well as Data Analytics. Actually, all these can be applicable to a successful hybrid event, but the most relevant of them all is the last one, event data. Remember to send pre and post-event surveys to keep the conversation going and collect data, so that your events can be both memorable and measurable through digital analytics, and even generate more insights and ROI.
Digital/hybrid events enable holistic tracking of customer behaviors and preferences, including click rates, screen time, reactions, keywords searched or inputted, providing purposeful insight into your target demographic/audience groups.
To make the most out of your invaluable event data insights, they should be incorporated into marketing campaigns to optimize conversion rate as well as brand awareness. Based on recent studies, 77% of event organizers are now integrating registrants’ data into their customer relationship management systems, further utilizing the data captured in their sales and marketing initiatives to generate ROI.
Trend 4: The hunt for the best event software
Following the same thread, as event data is thrust into the limelight, so is the pursuit of the supporting technologies, hardware and software, especially for digital/hybrid events, where they have to be hosted via an online platform. Event organizers in 2022 will be constantly on the lookout for technologies to guide them along each step, from event planning, execution, as well as evaluation. To name but a few, user-friendly and visually pleasing UI/UX, stable and consistent network, in-depth data analytics, in-session interactions, or even state-of-the-art experiential features to stand out from the crowd, tapping into VR capacity.
According to our study, in-session text chat/Q&A, networking profile, live virtual chat with sponsors, and in-session clickable emoji reactions are among attendees’ top features of virtual platforms. The most successful event organizers in 2022 have to embrace and leverage technological advancements to acquire an ever-evolving audience and capture quality leads under the post-pandemic era.
How EventX can help
EventX boosts event lead conversion rate by 89%. If you want to replicate this success in your upcoming event, be it webinar, in-person event, hybrid event, or exhibition, you can always count on us, your all-rounded professional virtual event buddy for a remarkable and memorable experience. Thanks to the ever-evolving technologies, the giant event industry is expected to experience a compound annual growth rate of 11.2% worldwide from 2021 to 2028. Explore how your events can evolve and engage in 2022 through EventX. Ride on the wave of unprecedented possibilities and capture the best of virtual and actual worlds by new forms of hybrid events for ROI optimization.
DOWNLOAD our white paper to get the complete guide to the Event Industry Trends in 2022
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